


Input Overload, System Shutdown

by SolarMorrigan



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Sensory Overload, Sometimes your brain breaks, but that's okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 05:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11029392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Q cannot abide chaos. He makes sense of it in short order. Most of the time.





	Input Overload, System Shutdown

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a fill for [this](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/809831.html?thread=103152743#t103152743) comment_fic prompt
> 
> I'm actually really super pleased with this one. Very fond of it

The thing was- the thing was, Q was actually not very good with chaos. Q did not like chaos. It was his job to manage and make sense of chaos- make it orderly. Q simply was not good at handling chaos.

What Q _was_ good at was processing individual incidents and pieces of information so quickly that even the most confusing situations rarely felt really, truly out of control.

Lab accidents, cyberattacks, tanked missions, aggressive field agents, impatient higher-ups – Q handled all that. He relished in taking all of it and making it _behave_. It was his job.

He was good at it.

Just- the thing was, much as Q liked to deny it, he did have to switch off at some point. Power down and recharge. There came a point when Q’s mind could no longer process and filter every bit of input and order it accordingly, and that’s when life became a little harder.

Q liked to spend those times safely pent up in his flat if he could, surrounded by familiar things that he didn’t have to make sense of. Furry cats and impressionist art prints and music he knew note for note and worn paths around the furniture he could walk by rote. Everything familiar and soft around the edges and nothing to jar him until things were processing properly again. Except that he couldn’t always—not _exactly_ —feel an oncoming break in sensory processing abilities.

(It never happened at work, no, no, that wouldn’t do, Q would never allow that, but when he wasn’t in Q branch, when he _wasn’t_ responsible for lives and security and tech, when he was just at home, well, his guard was down.)

So occasionally- just occasionally, Q might be out and about when suddenly things stopped making quite as much sense. Which was… disconcerting. Words might fail to make it to his brain properly, or his eyes couldn’t quite make sense of what he was looking at, or he would forget which way he was supposed to be going or why he’d come out at all because everything was just _loud_ and _disorienting_ and _chaotic_ and completely _unmanageable_.

Which left Q in the middle of a crowded street, standing in front of a rather befuddlingly bright display for… something, trying desperately to figure out which way was up. Or down. Or out. Out would be good. Off the street, out of the people who were all blurring together—confusing, very confusing—maybe into a vehicle, he could say his address without having to think about it, really, but wasn’t he forgetting something?

Someone.

Forgetting Bond. Silly, really, forgetting someone so- so like Bond. Q might have laughed if he weren’t trying to remember if Bond had said where he was going and if he’d be able to find the agent again or if he should just stay where he was like a damn lost child and this was fucking _frustrating_ , Q did not like chaos and- “Q.”

The letter was murmured straight into his ear, quietly audible above the roar of people shoving past, and it made blessed sense.

The warm, callused palm wrapped around his wrist made sense. It was familiar. It was grounding. It was Bond.

“That’s enough for today, I think.” Bond continued speaking into Q’s ear, voice measured and low and making just enough sense that Q knew he could follow, “Let’s go home.”

Q nodded. Good, familiar, organized home, with good, familiar, _spectacular_ Bond. Home, where Q could sit amongst familiar things until his brain recognized order again. Where Bond would sit with Q until Q’s brain recognized order again. And then maybe they would have dinner.

Q latched onto the thought and trusted that Bond would lead Q away from the confusion and chaos and would make sense of everything. Odd change of pace, Q mused, but he wrapped his hand in Bond’s and relished in the familiarity and decided not to care.


End file.
